Music Style Many

Artist History Wild Cherry was born out of the Steubenville, Ohio area, home and birth ground of it's founder, Robert Parissi. Pittsburgh Pa., which is but 40 miles east, has, and always had a reputation for being an "R&B town, (jazz and rythum and blues). On the otherhand, Cleveland, Oh., which is but 125 miles north, is home to Rock & Roll. In 1970, from this environment, Wild Cherry was formed as just another four or five piece local band trying to draw people into the dance halls by playing rock/dance music ala. Led Zepplin's "The Ocean" and "Rock & Roll", anything by the Rolling Stones like "Gimme Shelter", early Kiss tunes like "Firehouse", and just anything soulful that rocked. Playing party /dance music that had an edge seemed to be the winning combination to drawing the most people in that area between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Wild Cherry became a very successful local band with a steady following that stretched a radius of three hours driving time either way the compass pointed from home. They could play as much and as many nights in a row as they wanted. The original band broke up in the fall of 1974 from a disagreement on the direction they were going. The other three members, at that time, decided that they didn't want to be a "dance machine" any more, and that they wanted to form their own band that people came out and laid on the floor, got loaded and just listened to, and at the end of every night, they wanted to hang the drummer, Ben, who kind of looked like Christ, from a cross; And that they wanted to name the new band "Messiah"; And that they wanted Robert Parissi to join THEIR new band. So, in that New year of 1975 , Robert Parissi decided to sell all his equipment and went to work as a manager trainee of Bonanza Steak Houses. With a family that was more important than jumping abord the Titanic, he decided to trade his big dream of making it in the music business for stability. However, the musicians that were coming around to buy his equipment were all asking why he quit playing, and if he ever decided to start again to give them a call. Suddenly, being the manager trainee of a Bonanza Restaurant got old. So, two months later in the early spring of 1975, Robert Parissi decided to go back out on the streets and drive up and down in front of the music stores looking for the guy he sold his guitar to. After finding him and buying it back, the second coming of Wild Cherry was born. It was a rough go at first, being that in just that few 2-3 months that he'd been gone from the club circuit, Rock clubs were closing down because of the new place to go, being the DISCO -- The place where records played, but bands didn't. To boot, the new band wasn't as good and polished right off the bat as the old band. Many of the old fans that came out to see them were disappointed, and the bad word spread quickly. Therefore, the new Wild Cherry, for months, took a back seat to that other new local band, "Messiah". In fact, things got so bad that by the fall of 1975, Robert was booking the band in whatever rock clubs he could, and also in a few Disco's that were needing an extra draw on their off nights. Playing both the Disco's and Rock clubs presented a dilema in that it became increasingly hard to acquire just one list of songs that would be accepted no matter where they played. The musicians in the new band also started to object to doing some of the disco songs like KC and the Sunshine band, or for that matter, even Average White Band, even if they were free to rock them out a little. Tension built up to a point where it was increasingly hard to keep booked, let alone to keep making a steady salary. One night, during a group meeting in a Disco in Pittsburgh, Pa., Rob was explaining to the band that it was getting very hard to keep them booked consistently unless they played even MORE of that R&B oriented dance music, and that there must be a way to incorporate the groove du jour (being the disco beat) with the edge (Rock). The drummer of Wild Cherry then, Ron Beitle, spoke up and said that it was just like the black friends we'd come to make playing in that same disco we were sitting in had just been teasing us about during our last set. We had just heard them say, "hey, are you white boys gonna play some funky music?" He said, "they keep saying , Play That Funky Music, White Boys". Robert said to Ron, "That's a great title", walked out of the meeting room and over to the bar, grabbed a drink order pad and pencil, and had the first two verses of "Play That Funky Music" written within the time it took to write it down and get to the stage to play the second set. The last verse was written in the back seat of the car during the 40 mile drive home. After shopping it around to several record labels, "Play That Funky Music" was finally released in the spring of 1976 by a subsidery of CBS records out of Cleveland, Ohio, and was also first heard on the radio in Cleveland. During that summer, it enjoyed Number One status for 3 weeks on the Billboard charts, had sold a million copies by August, 23, and both the single and debut album had achieved platinum status by early fall that same year. It was a hit in every country in the world without a foreign version of it ever done. To this day, it's still one of the biggest rock/dance songs of all time, worldwide. Four albums and several failed attempts later to produce a follow up equaling the success of "Play That Funky Music", Wild Cherry disbanded at the end of 1979 and its members went their seperate ways. Robert Parissi went on to write songs with and co-produce projects with the likes of Ellie Greenwich, Bobby Caldwell, Gary US Bonds, and Billy Squire's band during the early 80's, while living between Miami, Florida and New York City. He also did a brief stint in 1989 as a morning DJ and program director at a rock radio station in the Wheeling, West Va. market. He's now happily semiretired in St. Petersburg, Florida. He has a recording studio in his home and still writes and records new material which can be heard and purchased on MP3 under Wild Cherry. Wild Cherry was nominated for two Grammy's in 1976 for best lead vocal and best R&B song. And they also won the American Music Award in 1976 for favorite song, as well as the Billboard Magazine award for best new band that same year. In the mid 1990's, "PTFM" (Play That Funky Music... get it?) was inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to the "One Hit Wonder" wall. In case you've never been to the R&R Hall of Fame, it's a wall full of hit songs by a select group of "now you see them, now you don't" artists that were so memorably huge that it makes you stop to wonder, what the hell happened to that band??? A dubious, but still appreciated decoration, nonetheless. Although the above is a very impressive list of honors, the band wants it also to be known that both Wild Cherry and Play That Funky Music were $800 double Jeopardy answers over the years, both correctly guessed, we dare add, while phrased in the form of a question. Thank you, Merv Griffin. The song has had incredible success around the world, and still enjoys it, thanks to all the people that love it. It's had more than it's share of featuring in several movies, worldwide TV advertisements (as in the kick off to the Intel Pentium campagin during the Superbowl a few years ago), and it's currently the nightly intro to "The Late Late Show, with Craig Kilborn, right after David Letterman, on CBS. In closing, being a One Hit Wonder is better than being a No Hit Wonder, but not quite as much fun as being a Two Hit Wonder. But then again, not always! Enjoy your life, and let life enjoy you!

Albums Wild Cherry

Location St. Petersburg, Florida - USA

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